During its Capital Markets Day presentation, GM said that Cadillac will be GM’s lead electric vehicle brand and will introduce the first model from the company’s all-new global battery electric vehicle architecture (BEV3), GM’s foundation for an advanced family of profitable EVs.

The mission of the new architecture is 1) to support a range of more than 300 miles (482 km) and 2) to be profitable.

BEV3 is the canvas upon which we will paint a profitable EV program.

—Mark Reuss, GM President

The flexible platform will support a broad array of body styles—CUVs, SUVs and cars—and will be offered in front-wheel, rear- wheel and all-wheel configurations. Everything in the portfolio will be able to be built with three drive units: front-wheel, rear-wheel and all-wheel.

Its most critical components—including the battery cells and power electronics—are being designed for maximum usability across all programs.

The battery system will also be adjustable, based on vehicle and customer requirements.

The architectural design will allow the battery packs to fit into the vehicle like ice cubes into an ice tray. You can put in as much water to make as many cubes as you need; the tray still takes up the same amount of space in the freezer. This give us astounding flexibility across the vehicle portfolio and allows us to achieve two things: the broad range needs and price points that our customers desire, and because we are at the highest degree of scale, tremendous cost savings.

We can and will design for multiple brands in multiple global regions from this very same architecture. The BEV3 architecture is exactly why we are so bullish on the future of electrification in our product portofolio. As we increase volume and scale, we will drive costs down even further. That is why we are so very committed to this technology.

—Mark Reuss

GM is currently on track to launch 10 NEV models in China by 2020, said Matt Tsien, President of GM China. GM plans to double that number by 2023 with the launch of the new Global Electric Vehicle Architecture.

Engineering resources allocated to electric and autonomous vehicle programs will double in the next two years. … As the current vehicle portfolio is optimized, about 75% of our global sales volume will come from five architectures by early next decade. Those architectures will all be bought and paid for in terms of investment, freeing up even more resources for future EV programs. That doesn’t mean, of course, that every last red cent goes to EVs.

… We still have a business to run, we still have a portfolio to seed and refresh, especially our trucks and crossovers, and we still have to return value to our shareholders. It simply means that when we reinvest profits in core products, the ratio of investment will be flipped in favor of EVs versus internal combustion vehicles of today.

The worst car I ever owned was a Cadillac Catera.
But your point is that their high end luxury brand should electrify first, which is Tesla's strategy as well.
We shall see if GM screws it up.
My opinion is that they won't be the worst, but they will be late to the game and they will cut corners in reliability.

Finally, GM has decided to switch to EVs starting with a common architecture (up to 380 Km with variable size battery packs) to be marketed by Cadillac.

The idea is not new and competition has already been around for a few years. GM will have to use its Chinese plants to reduce cost of batteries, drive trains, assembly etc. Up to 10+ other major manufacturers with be on the same train.

You know it's good to see GM up their game in the EV arena, but after getting massive bail out $money$ and a chunk of the $1.5T tax give away and than closing down half of their plants in the US and out sourcing jobs, that leaves a bad taste for taxpaying consumers. They need come up with something that's better than a half-a-loaf.

Good question. Should GM have gone bankrupt in 2008/2009 instead of being supported by USA/Canada tax payers with $30B+ or so.

Since GM is now closing up to six large plants in USA/CANADA and probably moving most EVs production to China, (and India next?), let's hope that USA/CANADA will not offer GM another $30B to $50B to maintain local jobs.

Would it be wiser to offer hand outs to Japan, So-Korea, China, EU vehicle manufacturers to build new plants and produce EVs (only) in USA/CANADA?

Like Tesla, GM has used most of their incentive money. That may make it more difficult to sell premium-cost EVs in the U.S. The American automakers don't appear to be in a hurry to sell in the U.S.; and, maybe not at all in Europe, their interest appears to be in China for now. They may be waiting too long, especially if someone, like Tesla introduces a fairly-priced pick up.